Salesforce1 Lightning Connect Aims to End the Long CRM Integration NightmareNovember 13, 2014
Salesforce.com has unveiled Salesforce1 Lightning Connect, a new component for its Lightning Platform as a Service for mobile developers, which it introduced last month.
Lightning Connect, which is available immediately, is an integration tool that moves data in real time from back-end legacy systems to the Salesforce.com mobile offering. Its purpose is to make the data migration easy for users.

The US Government's Tenuous Relationship With Open SourceNovember 12, 2014
The amount of open source software used by the U.S. government might be one of the biggest secrets in Washington. Not even purveyors of FOSS, as in free and open source software, know the extent of federal agency adoption of nonproprietary software. Some in the Beltway Loop contend that open source is very prevalent. Others suggest that it's avoided because its code is exposed for anyone to see.

Firefox Develops a Case of Selective AmnesiaNovember 11, 2014
Roughly 10 years to the day after the release of Firefox 1.0, Mozilla on Monday announced an updated version of its open source browser complete with a new Forget button aimed at protecting users' privacy. Forget asks you only one question, said Firefox Vice President Johnathan Nightingale. "How much do you want to forget?" Once you supply a time frame, "it takes care of the rest."

YOLOTD: Could 2015 Be Linux's Big Year?November 10, 2014
It's no secret that the Linux community has been in a state of upheaval these last few months, thanks to a little piece of technology known as "Systemd." It not only has been divisive, but also has been distracting us from more important matters. Need an example? Here you go: When was the last time you participated in a rousing revival of the good old "Year of Linux on the Desktop" debate?

Black Lab Linux Is GNOME 3's Best FriendNovember 7, 2014
Black Lab Linux is a general purpose free distribution for home users and SMBs. This particular segment of the Linux OS tries to bridge free OS and preconfigured commercial hardware/software with a flexible set of options. Black Lab Linux is an outgrowth of OS4 OpenLinux, a distro released in 2008 by the same developers. There is a blurred line between the free and enterprise versions.

Are There Too Many Forks at the FOSS Table?November 3, 2014
Halloween has come and gone here in the Northern reaches of the Linux blogosphere, but for those of us paying attention, few things could be more frightful than the bloodshed now occurring in Debian's civil war. The streets of the blogosphere are filled with smoke; conversations are getting drowned out by the din of gunfire; and glasses are perpetually rattling down at the Punchy Penguin Saloon.

Security-Minded Qubes OS Will Satisfy Your Yen for XenOctober 31, 2014
Qubes OS is a hybrid computing technology that raises the bar for security. It takes locking down computers to a new level. It has advanced far beyond the primitive proof of concept demonstrated more than four years ago. Beta Release 2, which arrived in late September, is a powerful desktop OS. Qubes succeeds in seamless integrating security by isolation into the user experience.

The Long and Winding Road to Shellshock RecoveryOctober 29, 2014
Four days after Shellshock was disclosed, Incapsula's Web application firewall deflected more than 217,000 attempted exploits on more than 4,100 domains. The company recorded upwards of 1,970 attacks per hour, from more than 890 IPs around the world. Shellshock was expected to be far worse than the Heartbleed flaw, which was expected to impact about 17 percent of the secure Web servers worldwide.

Mobile Database Management's Coming of AgeOctober 28, 2014
The push is on for mobile database management tools built from the ground up to run directly inside phones, tablets and wearables. These mobile database solutions are being designed to do what heavyweight open source solutions like SQLite, Cord Data, MySQL and PostgreSQL were not designed to do. Some 4.55 billion people worldwide are using mobile phones this year.

FOSS and the Fear FactorOctober 20, 2014
In a world that's been dominated for far too long by the Systemd Inferno, Linux fans will have to be forgiven if they seize perhaps a bit too gleefully upon the scraps of cheerful news that come along on any given day. Of course, for cheerful news, there's never any better place to look than the Reglue effort, run by longtime Linux advocate and all-around-hero-for-kids Ken Starks.

Lollipop Could Make Android StickierOctober 15, 2014
Google on Wednesday unwrapped Android 5.0 Lollipop, officially replacing the "Android L" code name by which the latest version of its mobile platform previously had been known.
"Lollipop is our largest, most ambitious release on Android, with over 5,000 new APIs for developers," wrote Sundar Pichai, Google's senior vice president for Android, Chrome & Apps, in a blog post.

Report: Open Source Needs to Get With the Security ProgramOctober 15, 2014
Open source developers apparently don't adhere to best practices such as using static analysis and conducting regular security audits, found Coverity's Spotlight report, released Wednesday. The Coverity Scan service, which is available at no charge to open source projects, helped devs find and fix about 50,000 quality and security defects in code last year.

And Now for Something Completely DifferentOctober 13, 2014
Well it's a good thing we here in the Linux community had a refreshing and refocusing break recently, because last week it was back onto the hot coals once again. The Systemd inferno -- which Linux Girl is starting to think of as "The Blaze That Must Not Be Named" -- has spread even further, your trusty reporter is dismayed to report, extending now to encompass the entire FOSS community.

Cylon Linux Gives GNOME Fans Glamour GaloreOctober 9, 2014
Cylon Linux Delivers GNOME Design with Glamour Galore Jack M. Germain Cylon is a classic Linux distro preconfigured with lots of tweaks -- kind of a Unity-less Ubuntu with bling. Cylon runs the classic GNOME 3 desktop on almost any hardware configuration made since 2007, but it is more suited to seasoned Linux users. Newcomers to Linux may not make an easy transition.

What's Driving Open Source 2.0?October 8, 2014
We're hearing more from vendors about how new features, functionality, rewrites and releases are being driven by customers -- by their direct experience using the software and competing in their various industries. We're also hearing from customers and users, including the enterprise market, that increasingly they are involved and thus empowered in open source software communities.

Systemd Dev Slams FOSS CultureOctober 7, 2014
The open source community is "quite a sick place to be in," said Red Hat engineer and Systemd developer Lennart Poettering. "The open source community is full of [assh*les], and I probably more than most others am one of their most favorite targets," Poettering added. "I get hate mail for hacking on open source. People have started multiple 'petitions' .... asking me to stop working.

The Importance of Being FOSSOctober 6, 2014
It's a fact of life in virtually every community that there will be countless daily distractions -- news announcements, controversies, squabbles -- that take up the majority of our time and energy, leaving little for the big picture. The Linux community is no exception. That's why it was such a relief to see a post recently that struck directly to the core of all that is FOSS.

Elementary OS 'Freya' Is Worth the WaitOctober 2, 2014
Elementary OS is a new style Linux distro that wraps its own sophisticated desktop design around a solid Ubuntu core. This distro first appeared in 2011, and the second major version came out last year. The latest weeks-old beta release -- the third major version, called "Freya" -- shows that Elementary OS continues to offer Linux users a dependable alternative to popular desktop options.

Darkcoin Steps Out of the ShadowsOctober 1, 2014
Darkcoin has exited beta and is now ready for mainstream use. Also, the software's code is now open source. Darkcoin is the first fully open source cryptocurrency with financial privacy built directly into the software, its developers claimed. Open-sourcing financial software is vitally important, they said, because it instills confidence that users' financial privacy is protected.

GNOME Again, GNOME Again, Jiggety JigSeptember 29, 2014
There's just never a dull moment here in the Linux blogosphere, and the last week or so has been a perfect illustration. Not only did the Shellshock bug hit the proverbial fan, but the ever-burning Systemd flames flared even brighter, thanks to the addition of some fresh fuel. The Debian team has decided to make the GNOME desktop default again -- and Systemd is at least part of the reason.

The Power of Linux (Almost) EverywhereSeptember 26, 2014
Linux -- the free open source operating system for enterprise, small business and home computing use -- is not used everywhere yet. However, its user base crosses nearly every industry. It's in consumer products like TVs and computer networking gear. Linux drives services that users do not even know run Linux. Think in terms of servers, Big Data farms and cloud storage facilities.

Bash Shellshock Bug Patched but Not PummeledSeptember 25, 2014
Researchers on Thursday discovered proof-of-concept code that could take advantage of unpatched computer systems, and found evidence of attacks exploiting the BASH Shellshock bug in the wild. Shellshock, which came to light on Wednesday, could become a major threat to Linux/Unix and Apple operating systems if published patches to BASH are not applied before an attacker cashes in.

Dan Allen and Sarah White: Documentation Dearth Dooms Open Source ProjectsSeptember 24, 2014
One of the essential draws to open source software should be superior product documentation. Well-written user guidelines are a key strategy that software developers should use to increase an open source project's growth and user adoption.
All too often, programmers finish their last line of code and shove the open source software out the door. Documentation is often an afterthought, if that.

Hacker Gives Google a Hand With Chrome-Android CompatibilitySeptember 23, 2014
An unplanned convergence of Android apps and the Chrome OS may be setting the stage for a wide-open cross-platform architecture that combines Android and Chrome. Freelance programmer Vlad Filippov, aka "Vladikoff," discovered a way around Google's limitations on its ARC, or App Runtime for Chrome, which is essentially a Chrome extension application programming interface.